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With VBS and other summer evangelistic opportunities just around the corner, we can never be overly prepared to share the gospel with kids and their parents.

LifeWay Kids team member Jerry Vogel recently reminded a group of kidmin leaders to never miss an opportunity to share the gospel. Every aspects of VBS - from the Bible story to crafts and snacks - creates an opportunity to talk to a kid or parent about their relationship with Jesus.

Jerry reminded leaders to:

Ask open-ended questions

Remain conversational, not confrontational

Never assume that a kid understands your “church talk” about becoming a Christian

Make the distinction between becoming a Christian, baptism, and taking the Lord’s Supper

Encourage kids to express their own ideas - let kids think and process

Provide personal counseling for every kid

Use a Bible translation kids are familiar with and uses language they will understand

Give kids an anchor to help them remember the day and decision so they can go back to that moment later in life

It’s a parent’s worst nightmare: finding out your child has made online contact with strangers posing as teenagers, has met those strangers in real life, and now your child has been sexually assaulted.

No one wants to think this can happen to their own child, but that’s exactly what happened to three young teens who used a popular app meant for flirting and dating. That app now bans minors from using it’s service… but the problem is, it’s not the only app out there.

Tinder is one of the most popular dating apps on the market, and has been labeled one of the most dangerous and inappropriate apps for teens and tweens.

What Exactly is Tinder?

Tinder is a dating app for smartphones. Released in 2012, it’s a mashup of traditional online dating, GPS targeting, and instant messaging.

Users are shown with a photo of potential matches in their area, and then can anonymously rate that person by “swiping” their picture off the screen in a different direction. Interested? Swipe right. Not interested? Swipe left.

If two users both “swipe right” to indicate they are interested, Tinder makes an “introduction” and reveals each user’s identity. The couple can then message each other and arrange to meet.

It’s a straightforward process, as dating apps go. The simplicity of the app appeals to many millennials and teens who are used to making instant connections online. But many say it’s also incredibly superficial.

Sean Rad, founder and former CEO of Tinder, says it just mimics real life. He admits, “It is all about the picture. We’re not ashamed to say that. In the real world, you all have that initial first impression and that look and I think we underestimate the power of our brains to tell a story by looking at a photo.”

In any case, the numbers speak for themselves. Tinder claims the app sees over 50 million people use the app every month, with 1.6 billion “swipes” and 26 million matches every day.

However, once the match has been made and instant messaging comes into play, all bets are off.

Image via Shutterstock.

Who Uses Tinder

With so many people connecting with strangers every day, it’s important to realize WHO exactly is using Tinder.

The current Tinder demographics are:

7% — 13 to 17 years old

51% — 18 to 24 year olds

32% — 25 to 32 year olds

6.5% — 35 to 44 year olds

3.5% — 45 year olds and older.

You might notice something strange at the top of that list… 7% of users are 13 to 17? That’s at least 3.5 million teens that are active on Tinder.

That’s the main reason Tinder is so worrisome for parents: it allows users as young as 13 to create accounts.

In an email exchanged with The Huffington Post, Tinder spokesperson Rosette Pambakian wrote, “To protect young users, those between the ages of 13 to 17 can only connect with other users in that same age range on Tinder. Additionally, the only way two users are able to message each other within Tinder is if they mutually expressed interest by ‘liking’ each other, which results in a match. That means that users cannot send messages to other users without mutual consent.”

However, like almost all social media apps and sites, there is nothing to prevent users from entering false birth dates. This is especially troublesome, because Tinder is linked to Facebook and Instagram accounts where it is estimated that 44 percent of teens have lied about how old they really are to gain access to age restricted content.

Beyond teens using this tactic, there are concerns that predators can also lie about their age to gain access to younger teens’ profiles. Online “sextortion” is a relatively new phenomenon but one that all parents need to be aware of.

Image via Shutterstock.

How Are Teens Using Tinder

Parents have other reasons to be concerned over Tinder. While Tinder is called a “dating” app, it has a reputation for being used mostly for hook-ups and sexual encounters. What differentiates it from most others is that Tinder uses a smartphone’s GPS tracking feature to connect people within a geographical region. The danger Tinder poses isn’t just virtual… it’s within arm’s reach.

A survey of teens on Tinder saw a huge emphasis on sexual encounters, including stories such as…

“Every person I know who has Tinder has been asked for sex.” — 16 year old.

“Teens [use it] to find other teens who are interested in getting physical without on emotional connection.” — Anonymous teen.

Image via Imgur

“All the girls I know have spoken to mainly older guys, around one or two years older. And the guys speak to anyone they can. It starts off with general chit-chat usually, and then it slips into talking purely about sex and physical stuff and then often they eventually arrange to meet up.” — 16 year old.

“Of course there’s the risk of meeting creeps on dating sites, but there’s that risk when you meet people offline too.” — 18 year old.

Other Concerns Over Tinder

Like most messaging apps, Tinder puts teens at risk for cyberbullying. Cyberbullies can create fake accounts, take screenshots, and humiliate victims with this dating app, whether it’s a stranger they’ve met online, or someone they know, and have specifically matched with in order to bully or threaten.

This is especially troubling for parents of teen girls. Tinder is infamous for sexual harassment of women, and can create self-esteem issues in vulnerable teen girls.

Image via Twitter.

In fact, the former CEO Sean Rad who we quoted above, stepped down as CEO after the female VP of marketing filed a lawsuit accusing her co-workers of sexual harassment and sexism.

Parents need to instill in kids an understanding of the dangers social media poses. This will likely empower kids to protect themselves against digital pitfalls like predators, cyberbullies, and sexting.

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Are you interested in becoming part of the local church here at Union Avenue? We would love to have you join together with us. We believe that a gospel-centered church is an active church. In fact, the church is to be a verb. It is a verb in the sense that we are to be actively involved in: worshipping Christ, discipling people in the truths of the gospel, praying individually and together as a body, telling people about the hope found in the gospel as we live our lives on a daily basis, fellowshipping with one another as we journey together in the gospel of Jesus Christ. We find these actions in Acts 2:42-47, where Luke shows us the ministry of the New Testament church in action: